SOCCER

William's best buddy at school is Jowanzo.  Jowanzo plays soccer, so William begged to join up.  William missed a whole year of the sport, so knowing the disadvantage he was at, we contracted out his learning a little before he began.

Now, it is SOCCER TIME!

Notice the University of Oregon soccer outfit.  Go Ducks!

Too bad this means that William 'waddles' a bit while trying to coerce the ball into submission.

His coaches speak to him in Japanese, and pretend to know no English around me.  However, yesterday when William was sitting on his ball, doodling in the sand and not paying attention to when his turn was, I heard the coach say, "William, Wake up!"

You're seeing the 'koinobouri' on the wires to celebrate Kodomo no Hi or children's day.  Originally boys day, the carp symbolize strength and prosperity wishes for your boys.

Subliminal Translation

Recently, I got a sign-up form for William's school's spring field trip.

Instructions #1 says if an older gamily guest is coming, make sure they don't get carsick and are in reasonably good health.  #2 says (and I quote, you'll notice I left in the Engrish):  This field trip has serves as an important event for the school, such as a social gathering for parents, children and teachers, while enjoying nature observation and making memories through photos.  We ask that you please try to attend the trip.

The form has the cost of ¥ 3,200 for children, ¥ 4,000 for adult.

I am filling out the form and noting the day, digging out money to cover the expense when I was told that I shouldn't go.  If I go, William will have to stay with me, and not his class mates (Seika rules).  I should wait to see if any Japanese parents are going.  A week later I got a call to tell me that no Japanese parents are going, so I should not go.

I am so glad the translator told me this because I thought I was supposed to go?  The hand out specifically says this!  When I checked with 2 sets of American parents, they said that last year, they had taken off work to go on this trip, and they were the ONLY parents there, and they'd been rather embarrassed.

Sometimes understanding Japanese protocol is hard.  It's good social manners to invite you, but we don't really want you to come.  Got it.  Hey, it saves me ¥ 4,000 ($40) and a day of my time.  I'm good!

Open House

I was being 'bugged' to show what my house looks like. Well, here it is:The living room.The tatami room is part of the living room, with shoji screens able to block it off. William loves watching TV by himself in here, and pulls the shoji across to make a little 'room.'Our dining room, and if you look around the corner to the right...This is Tim's kegerator.
The view, as you come in the front door (skis are in front of the back door).
Kitchen galley.
Kitchen from the dining room perspective (see my little bunny Easter decorations?)
The hallway WC. The shower room/wash basin/laundry is across the hall.
And this is our dining room, again, with a bit of the hallway showing. The cupboards to the right are for shoes.

Easter

One nice thing about being in Japan, is that we can celebrate a holiday and post it on the blog before everyone back home in the states wakes up for that same holiday.

It's Easter. This is the first year that we colored eggs with William. He was old enough last year, but since we were in the Navy Lodge at the time, it wasn't practical. Last night, we broke out the PAAS coloring kit and went to town. William had a blast, though many of the eggs have nice little flat spot stress fractures from the handling. Oh, well, that added a bit of color to the egg salad sandwiches we had today...

We got together with friends at the park and we hid some 192 plastic eggs all over the park then let the kids loose (with the under 10 crowd getting a 30 second head start) while the parents sat around and drank Mimosas and ate cinnamon rolls. The kids looked over their booty and traded phone bling found in the eggs for chocolate.

We then played a few rounds of kickball and called it a day.

Great fun!

CAROLINE'S NOTE: We had an avid reader ask if Japanese celebrate Easter. The answer is 'no.' It is based on a Christian holiday. When I explained to Japanese friends that we give candy to children, she said, "So it's like Halloween?" Japanese mainly follow Shintoism and Buddhism. So, they don't have Easter. We invited one of my student's family. He has 3 of the cutest kids. They had a great time, and it was fun to share with them an American tradition.

First Day of School

Japanese school starts in April, and finishes in March.  So, we have just completed our three-week 'break.'  Cousin James was here for a week, then William was sick for a week, and then we had a few fun days in the sun before his school started back up.

They also get a summer break at the end of July, and we'll be going home for most of it. We will be coming back early, as Wm has a 3-day, 2-night school summer camp towards the end of August.  

His schedule also went to a later pick-up and drop-off, not a true afternoon kindergarten, but similar.  Instead of being first on, then last off, he saves an hour by being picked up and dropped off in the same order both morning and night.  One less hour for me alone, but 2 1/2 more  hours to sleep in in the morning.  I'll take the trade-off!

The 'Yochien' gets broken into three classes.  He's now in the oldest class.  Last year, he was in the middle class.  Think of it as two years of pre-school, then one year of kindergarten.

For those blog stalkers who know the story, William picked this school mainly for the school bus that looks like a train.  There was a HUGE disappointment when they showed up with a van.  Things were better when it changed to a brand new yellow bus.  Good things happen to those who wait, and when I saw the train-bus in our neighborhood over break, I was hoping they were checking out whether the bus would fit in our small streets.  It does!  

Sakura Picnic

It is traditional in Japan to have picnics under the cherry blossoms in the spring.  This week has been amazingly sunny and clear.  This is a park near our home where a few friends gathered.William and Ryan ran around and started playing with rocks.  I noticed an older Japanese couple starting to move from their benches, and realized they weren't comfortable with the aim of 2 small Gaijin boys.  So, I told them to stop throwing rocks.  Next time I look over, they're trying to crawl under a car.  Apparently William's rock 'rolled' under a parked car, and wasn't technically 'thrown.'

William also loved it when the wind blew, and the blossoms would fall like snow.  He missed having true snow this year, so we decided that this is how it 'snows' in Japan.

FUJI Q for FIVE YEAR OLDS

I am feeling quite proud of myself. I wanted William to visit Thomas Land at Fuji Q Theme Park before he totally outgrew the over-priced phenomenon.
I wanted a sunny day without oppressive humidity. I didn't want to have to deal with crowds. So, I figured the week that most Japanese school children are headed back to school should have at least one sunny day. This week has had many. And WOW! We arrived an hour after the park opened and parked 10 cars away from the main entrance.

I did notice some of the rides were half-staffed, or 1/3 staffed, but Thomas Land was wide-opened. SCORE! William loves to run and pretend he's a train. Of course, this means he follows the seams in the sidewalk and stops randomly at imaginary stations. This can be a problem in a crowd. With nobody there, he got to run on the sidewalk with the 'tracks' in it, go through the maze, cross the different, fun foot bridges, go under the waterfalls cave, and run, run run. I didn't have any problem keeping line-of-sight with him.

I had gotten a hint from a friend to not buy the expensive all-day, all-rides pass ($33 for Wm, $45 for me). So, I paid $18 for both of us to get in on the basic entrance price,

 and $32 for individual rides. Children under 6 have to be accompanied by a parent, so it wasn't like I could send him on all of these rides by himself. I don't know, maybe we would have done a few of the other rides in the park, had we bought the pass. We focused on Thomas Land. I've learned trying to do too much with a kid can ruin a day, so focusing is a better deal for us. Interesting side-note: There are rides with age restrictions. Some you can't ride on until you're 3, 4, 10. And a few you can't ride on if you're over 54 or 59! WHAT? 14 more years of roller coasters for me?!?

There were plenty of places for photo-ops, without a crowd of people trying to take turns.
I did enjoy the shopping. While we didn't buy anything (William is now into Shinkansens and Cable Cars), I loved the Thomas stamped nori. That's a sheet of seaweed to wrap around your rice ball or sushi. 
There were more practical printed items, I'm assuming that Thomas can be a really USEFUL engine at times!
William had a blast, and to afford better buffering times, I have edited them into 2 videos.

EXPENSIVE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE

I know some people see me as a world traveller, and that I'm collecting new cultural experiences. However, there are some I could do without.

The top speed limit on Japan's roads, including the freeway-style toll roads, is 80 kph. That is roughly 49.7 miles an hour.

Well, it was a beautiful day yesterday. The sun was shining, the cherry blossoms were out in full, brilliant bloom, and I was getting out of town and taking William up to Fuji Q, where they have Thomas Land. This is an amazingly well-done Thomas the Tank Engine themed park. Fun.

Coming home, I was making remarkable time. It was one of those days where I got to get out of the small streets, and on the open road. I have dreams about Tim's WRX, and driving it. I miss that fun sports car. Both our cars here are under-powered, and the speed limits excruciatingly slow. The window was down, the wind in my hair, it was perfect. Right up until the unmarked police car pulled up along-side me and hit its siren. The assistant cop (they come in pairs) waved me to follow them to a spot where we could pull off the roadway.

They had me leave William in our car (he was amazingly stoic) and took me to their police car where they showed me that they'd gotten me on radar doing 103. That is 64 m.p.h. They gave me a sheet of paper that told me what I'd done wrong in English and got my licence and ID to fill out the paperwork. The fine was 15000 Yen, roughly $150 at the current exchange rate. I bowed and said, "Gomen nasai (sorry)," at the end.

I thought it was funny that William said (as we were being pulled over), "We don't have to tell dad!" I said, "Honey, of course we tell daddy. We don't hide things from him." Like I could. It is mandatory for our command to be notified. Great. My first ticket in 20 years, and the American government gets to be notified. When I insured my car recently for another year, the only question was if I'd had any accidents. Nope. My underwear remained intact during the whole event.

Apparently, I now need to go to a post office within the next week (I will do it today) and pay the fine.

Contracted Soccer Mentors

William has an interest in Soccer. Many of his classmates are playing Soccer this year and he wants to join them. However, we'd be coming into the middle of the season and we didn't want to ramp up the calendar content so fast, so we didn't put him in for the first year.

We do want to break the cycle of Putaansuu incompetence with the sport, though, so we are planning to put him into Soccer for the new year (BTW, the school year starts April 15th). We want him to have some basic level of skill to enter with, though, but we had a dilemma. Neither Caroline or I know much of anything about Soccer other than it's dangerous to attend a cross country rivalry game in England or Brazil...

So, we decided to contract out William's Soccer Mentoring to some of the daughters of our friends that are currently playing Soccer. It's a win-win situation. William gets quality training and coaching, the girls get some first rate experience in coaching and training and an income to boot.

This is a video of William training with Charla. At the end, you hear the four o'clock chimes that signal that unaccompanied kids need to go back home. During the summer, the music moves to five o'clock. For several months, William kept an eye on the clock and would head outside to listen to the music. We were confused for a while when it moved from five o'clock to four o'clock. Many days sitting out there wondering where the music was...